The contracts of 40,000 civil service workers are to be reexamined by specially appointed inspectors in order to ascertain whether they merited being granted permanent status after being hired on fixed-term contracts.

The inspections, which began on Tuesday, were approved by a joint ministerial decision signed by Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Alternate Finance Minister Christos Staikouras.

The inspections will be supervised by the Supreme Council for Personnel Selection (ASEP). Any state workers found to have received a promotion on the basis of false claims, such as forged education certificates, will be dismissed immediately without severance pay.